Just when you thought it was impossible for the Internet to get any more distracting, some clever coder comes along and creates something fun and truly addictive like Glitch. Glitch is basically what happens when MUDs grow up and marry artists. It’s an intricate world full of silly puns and crazy quests, but it’s also gorgeously presented and full of great music. If you’ve ever enjoyed any aspect of multiplayer online games, try Glitch. You’ll love it. Glitch has just launched out of beta and MakeUseOf has 50 invites for you to grab!

I do need to stress that you should NOT try this at work, lest you lose the rest of your day to Glitch – and possibly your job! Once you get started you’ll lose track of time and the hours will just fly by. Watch out!

Get Your Invite

Although Glitch has launched, they’re still only allowing a few people in at a time. MakeUseOf has 50 fast-track invites for you here and once you’re in you can fast-track a handful of your friends via Facebook. If you miss out on the fast-track invites, you can join in the regular queue here. If you’re really lucky one of your Facebook friends might fast-track you.

Get Playing

Sign up via email or Facebook, then dress up your avatar and get Glitching! The Glitch introduction is pretty self-explanatory and ensures you know all the basics for getting around the game and interacting with the things around you. Within a few minutes, you’ll be exploring and learning more about this weird world.

What’s The Point?

Well, whatever you want it to be. You might choose to make money through gardening skills or alchemy. You might want to buy a fancy house, try all the quests you can or you might decide you want to help build new streets for people to use.

The game will evolve for you as you play, with the aim being to provide infinite game-play for everyone. It’s a non-violent, somewhat co-operative and imaginative game.

It’s all fun and games, really. That is, until we work out what the Giants have in store for us.

A Glitch Tour

There’s so many great things to see and do in Glitch that it’s perhaps best if I just show you around a little. Throughout this article are some screenshots of some of the more interesting situations and various locations.

Extras

The Glitch API has been open during beta testing and has resulted in some great add-ons and applications for players outside the Glitch game itself. For instance, there is a Glitch HQ iOS application which lets players chat and gain new skills while they’re not currently playing the game.

Premium Features

Glitch is free for all players, but if you want some fancy premium features you can certainly pay for the privilege. Buying credits or subscribing will give you credits for neat clothing, teleportation tokens and other cool stuff.

Similar Games

You might be thinking this sounds a little like WOW, Minecraft or even Second Life. In some ways, you’d be right. All of these are massively multi-player online games which strive for infinite game-play. But, at the heart of each of these is a slightly different focus and a very different game. If you’ve enjoyed any of these other games, you should definitely give Glitch a go.

Hey, sadly, glitch closed :(
But they're remaking it! It's called Eleven Giants, and it's not open yet but the forums are up if any of you guys are interested. Massively is doing updates but if you guys did one too it would bring a lot of new people in, which is something we'd love.